Sharing Infant Care

Abstract

This chapter is focused on Unit 5 of the Couple CARE for Parents (CPP) program, which aims to help couples negotiate a mutually acceptable sharing of infant care responsibilities, and to balance individual, couple and family time. Unit 5 is the first unit delivered in flexible delivery mode (in the usual way of delivering CPP). Flexible delivery involves the couple completing activities at home and reviewing these activities with the educator at a later time via telephone or Internet. This chapter reviews some practical issues in making the flexible delivery format effective. The content also describes how to help couples analyze their current patterns of time use, and promote a healthy balance of individual, couple and family activities. The focus is then on helping couples review their parenting roles, and how those roles vary from their pre-birth expectations, with the aim of helping couples negotiate a shared approach to parenthood. This chapter also describes common challenges to completion of the flexible delivery units (e.g., when couples have not completed their self-directed learning activities), and how to manage those challenges.